Quantum Wellness

Kathy Freston's mind, body and soul journey to a healthier life.

What do you get when you combine a New York Times bestselling author and Oprah Winfrey together? A dynamo recipe for a journey that leads you along a path towards wellness and fulfillment. Author Kathy Freston's latest book "Quantum Wellness" has not just been heralded by Oprah, but the queen of daytime television has also fastidiously followed Freston's 21-day detoxification program. See more about Oprah's Diet, that involved a vegan diet, daily meditation and a daily serving of fun.

Quantum Wellness isn't just about doing a detox program. It is rather a guide to complete well-being on how to reach your highest level of health and contentment through small, focused changes. Freston encourages you to pick away at her 8 pillars of wellness in order to improve your quality of life. These eight pillars are: meditation, visualization, self-work, conscious eating, exercise, service, fun and spiritual practice.

Freston doesn't promise you that you'll lose 10 pounds in two weeks by adhering to these eight principles, but she does promise that by introducing small changes in your life, like cutting back on eating meat or setting an intention each day, will bring about a shift in how you feel about yourself and the world around you. Weight loss may just be a welcomed side effect of Freston's encouragement of conscious-eating. By thinking about what you are eating and why you are eating, you become more mindful of your dietary choices. This may lead to avoiding binging on trigger foods or eating because of emotional reasons rather than for pure sustenance and nourishment. Small actions like conscious eating can then make way for weight loss.

Freston also provides ways for you to reduce your environmental footprint by adopting a vegetarian lifestyle for a punctuated amount of time, using chemical-free household products, buying local produce or resisting the urge to purchase items that we don't need. Quantum Wellness covers a lot of territory. It encourages you to take an inventory of your own life and discover how what you do affects yourself and the world around you.

Encourages you to think about how actions and lifestyle choices affect ourselves and the planet

Promotes taking care of yourself and others

Supports an environmentally-friendly lifestyle

Endorsed by Oprah

Vegetarian and Vegan friendly

Diabetic friendly

Ideal for those with most food allergies

CON

Vegan lifestyle may be difficult for some to adhere to

May be difficult to find the time to apply all 8 pillars of wellness

DIET and NUTRITION

One of Quantum Wellness' main areas of focus is conscious eating. Freston promotes eating a vegan (no meat, eggs or dairy) lifestyle because of its beneficial effects on not just humans but animals and the planet in general. Since she believes that most animals that we eat in this country are treated inhumanely and that raising and slaughtering them take its toll on the environment, her ardent support of a meat-free diet is strongly encouraged as a fundamental step towards optimal wellness. By thinking about what we eat, why we are eating it and what the food had to go through before it landed onto our plates is the crux of Freston's conscious-eating approach.

Her daily meal plans are free of meat, dairy, alcohol, caffeine, sugar and gluten. The book also includes forty-five vegetarian recipes, two weeks of meal plans, a general shopping list, and an appendix of beneficial vitamins and minerals.

EXERCISE

Exercise is one of the Quantum Wellness's eight pillars of wellness. Freston suggests getting in 30 minutes of exercise three to six times each week, preferably outdoors, weather permitting.

CONCLUSION

There is no arguing the lifestyle plan that Quantum Wellness puts forth. Its clean way of eating, living, thinking and being is model lifestyle that many would aspire to follow. It's clear guidelines for how to introduce these small but powerful steps in your own life to improve your level of wellness are healthy not just for you but the planet as well.

But meat-lovers, fast-food fanatics and those resistant to the mind-body-spirit connection should tread slowly and focus on the overall intention of this lifestyle plan rather than focusing on not be able to chow down on that burger and fries.

The information provided within this site is strictly for the purposes of information only and is not a replacement or substitute for professional advice, doctors visit or treatment. The provided content on this site should serve, at most, as a companion to a professional consult. It should under no circumstance replace the advice of your primary care provider. You should always consult your primary care physician prior to starting any new fitness, nutrition or weight loss regime.